(IntegrityPress.org) – A recent move by Amazon to hire top members of an artificial intelligence (AI) firm has come under close scrutiny by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Amazon has recently made a deal in which it has taken on several members of staff, including researchers and executives, from the AI startup Adept. It was announced in June that some of Adept’s top brass, including its Chief Executive David Luan, would be leaving the firm to join Amazon’s team. Amazon is known to have previously invested $4 billion in another AI startup, Anthropic, earning itself a minority stake in the Californian business.
The FTC is reported to have asked Amazon for more details about its recent AI-related hiring spree, in an investigation that appears to reflect the FTC’s growing interest in how AI startups and well-established “Big Tech” companies are doing business together. The investigation is currently being undertaken on an informal basis, meaning that it will not necessarily require a formal investigation or any enforcement action as an outcome.
The FTC is also currently investigating Microsoft’s deal to hire a significant portion of another AI firm’s staff, including members of its leadership team. Microsoft is reported to have hired many of Inflection AI’s staff members while agreeing to pay a licensing fee of $650 million. The FTC has requested further details of the maneuver as it tries to establish whether or not the deal constitutes an attempt to avoid making the required disclosure of a merger.
More widely, antitrust enforcers have been keen to raise the alarm about the potential for “Big Tech” firms to use their advantages to crush their small competitors in the world of AI. The FTC’s investigations into the likes of Amazon and Microsoft involves looking at the many ties between various “Big Tech” and AI firms. It also seeks to uncover the full details of how these deals affect business strategies, management of personnel, pricing, and availability of particular products and services. The FTC and the Department of Justice have expressed an interest in launching similar probes into other key players such as Nvidia and OpenAI.
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